Boise State didn’t wait for a conference-wide event to set the tone for its season. On July 22, the Broncos hosted their own media day for local reporters, bringing in four coaches and eleven players. After talking with each of them, a few themes kept rising to the surface - and they say plenty about where this program thinks it is now.
The biggest one is simple: Boise State’s internal bar has climbed again.
For years, the program’s “standard” meant winning a conference championship, winning a bowl game, and doing it with academic excellence. After Boise State reached the CFP in 2024, that last piece changed from winning a bowl game to winning a CFP game.
Now the ceiling has been pushed higher still. When players were asked what success looks like this season, the answers came back the same way: go undefeated, win a PAC-12 championship, and win the national championship.
Sire Gaines put it plainly: “we've been to the playoff before. We've done that. Our goal isn't just to compete anymore, we want to go in and expect to win those games.”
That mindset wasn’t isolated. Boen Phelps and Roger Carreon echoed the same idea, making it clear this group isn’t interested in just getting invited to the playoff.
The expectation is to get there and win multiple games once they arrive. It lines up with what Jeremiah Dickey has said he wanted this program to become, and what now feels like the football team’s own operating system.
Another name that kept coming up was Tyler Ethridge. The CSU-Pueblo transfer may not be the flashiest player on the roster, but he was the most consistent answer when people were asked who Bronco Nation should get to know. Coming out of spring, Ethridge looked like the favorite at left tackle, and the praise only got louder from there.
Offensive coordinator Nate Potter said, “He's got athleticism that reminds me of Ryan Clady” and added that Ethridge’s ceiling is as high as it gets. Defensive end Max Stege backed that up, pointing to Ethridge’s movement and power: “He has heavy hands.
When Tyler gets his hands on you there's no getting away from him. He's going to be really good this season.”
The conversation around this team also kept circling back to depth. That word came up everywhere - offense, defense, special teams - and not in a vague, feel-good way.
Maddux Madsen pointed to the offensive line and running backs, saying there are 10 offensive linemen he feels can play and hold up. He also singled out the top four backs - Sire Gaines, Dylan Riley, Harry Stewart III and Juelz Goff - as one of the deepest groups he’s seen since arriving.
“Since I got to campus, I've never had to worry about the running backs. Whether it was one guy or five guys, we've had playmakers in the back field. This year we're really deep at that spot again.”
Potter said the receiver room has been a bright spot too, calling it “the deepest group on the offense and the hungriest group on the team. They've been a real bright spot for [Boise State] so far.”
On defense, Erikc Chinander pointed to the players who may not be household names yet, saying that the strength of his unit right now is the guys people don’t know about. He specifically mentioned the edge group and the safety/nickel room as areas where Boise State can rotate bodies and still get high-level play.
Even the quarterback room got a mention. Cameron Bates lit up when discussing true freshman Cash Herrera, saying, “Cash, he's been doing an amazing job.
In the spring he impressed me a lot. He threw a ball in spring that was from one hash to the far sideline that impressed me a lot.”
Bates also said Jackson Taylor has looked good, and that the competition behind Madsen for the QB2 and QB3 spots has been real.
Of course, coaches and players tend to like their own roster in July. Spencer Danielson joked, “I've never met a coach who hated their team in July.” But the praise around Boise State’s depth felt more grounded than the usual offseason optimism.
One more theme stood out, and it was a blunt one: selfishness hurt this team last season.
Boise State finished 9-5 and won a conference championship, which would be a strong year almost anywhere else. Not here.
When Bates was asked where things went wrong and what’s different now, he didn’t soften it. “I think it was selfishness from last year” he said. “at some points players would be selfish about something that's not going their way, so if everyone does their one-eleventh and get their job when their play comes, it'll be different this year.”
That word - selfish - kept resurfacing as the conversations went on. It wasn’t just one player’s take.
The same issue came up again and again, and it clearly struck a nerve. The 2025 Broncos, by their own telling, had a selfishness problem.
Media day has a way of sending you down a road you didn’t expect. For me, that road led straight to that word, and it’s a thread worth pulling on further.
In Other News...
Boise State's 2027 Class Is Raising A Bigger Pac-12 Question
Boise States 2027 recruiting class is already taking shape in a way that says as much about the programs future as it does about the new Pac-12 landscape. The Broncos added 11 high school and junior college commitments in June alone, pushing their known total to 15 and giving them a class that sits No. 75 nationally in the 247Sports composite. For a team trying to establish itself in a reshuffled league, that kind of early volume matters, especially with a mix that includes junior college help, long-term high school bets and a quarterback in Perry High Schools Kael Snyder.
The bigger question is how that class stacks up once the dust settles among the conferences newcomers. Boise State is currently sixth among the new Pac-12 programs, trailing a cluster that includes Fresno State, Washington State, San Diego State, Oregon State and Colorado State, and the Broncos still have room to climb if their top targets continue to come aboard. JIsaiah Mitchell, a three-star athlete from Puyallup High School, is one of the more notable pieces already in the fold, and the way Boise State finishes this class could say plenty about where it intends to fit in the league hierarchy when it arrives. [Read more 🡒]
Jayden Virgin-Morgan Could Decide Boise States Pac-12 Defensive Ceiling
Jayden Virgin-Morgan heads into his senior season as one of the most important players on Boise States roster, and that matters even more now that the Broncos are stepping into the Pac-12. The edge rusher has already built a strong rsum with 120 total tackles, 16 sacks and multiple all-Mountain West honors, giving Boise State a proven veteran to lean on as it faces a bigger stage and a deeper weekly test.
Virgin-Morgan has been productive enough to set the tone for the defense, but his final college year also carries a little more scrutiny. Boise State needs him to anchor the pass rush and help define what the Broncos can be in their new league, which puts his season in the spotlight from the start and leaves plenty riding on how high his ceiling can go. [Read more 🡒]